It’s time for all those end-of-the-year blog posts! I admit, I kind of like this tradition. It’s a nice way to look back on things from a larger perspective. And I have a brand new DreamWorld image featuring Travis Weinand for those who want to just scroll to the bottom 🙂

2015 was a… challenging year, to say the least. And it turns out I’m starting it with a fresh, new cold and fever. It has been the worst year I’ve had, ME-wise, so far. It didn’t help that the year began with a crunched-for-time move of houses which literally took me several months to recover from. Medication changes gave me months of terrible headaches and migraines, which also meant that this year was the least photographically productive year I’ve had yet also. Between feeling terrible physically and not having nearly as much access to my art therapy as I wanted, it was a very depressing, frustrating and emotionally trying year as well. All said, I’m happy to leave 2015 behind me and have set my intentions to have a much more fulfilling 2016.

There was some drama in the larger world of ME as well. The US officially changed its name from the very belittling “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” to the vague and incredibly widely-defined “Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease.” Most patients and advocates were very unhappy about this and there was a big backlash, which the powers-that-be mostly ignored, as is their usual method of dealing with us. I’m still calling it ME, which is what most of us wanted it to be changed to.

One of the first models I ever worked with, Dedeker Winston, who has continued modeling for me over the five years we’ve known each other, despite me forcing her to wake up early, pose laying in cold, slimy, creeks, regularly get naked in forests and once helping me discover what stinging nettles look like when I accidentally had her pose nude in a patch of them, left for an extended time abroad. She is having a wonderful, life-expanding time and I’m able to keep in touch and follow her journey online and through social media and texts. I was sad to see her leave, but glad that we’d gotten in as much shooting as we did before she left, such as the Pink Mother for DreamWorld. Speaking unselfishly though, I’m really happy she had this chance to do so much traveling and is having such an incredible time! But I won’t be sad when I have the chance to photograph her again 🙂

My dear friend Danica gave me a priceless chance to work with an incredible, stunning, cream-colored Gypsy Vanner stallion named Booger. As soon as I discovered she was horse-sitting him, I began planning a shoot with Katie Johnson and him together, utilizing him in every way I could think of. I have a LOT of his shots still on my hard drive waiting to be edited, but I did at least complete one image from that magical shoot!

I was able to attend another screening of The Last Unicorn, which was absolutely delightful! I dressed up as Amalthea and made a taco purse (get your own here!), which I think was the secret behind me winning the nightly costume contest. I was also able to introduce my dear friends and ex-neighbors Donna and John to the movie for the first time (though I’d already made them fans of Peter’s writing) and they were appropriately impressed.

Speaking of illness, one of my favorite photographers, Ashley Lebedev, let us all know that she has struggled with a chronic illness for a long time. It was beautiful to see people’s support and desire to help her gather funds for treatment. I wish her a much better, healthier 2016 also!

Since 2015 was so heavy with ME, migraines, frequent colds, injuries, deep ruts of depression and stress in ways I have seldom experienced it, an incredibly huge percentage of my physical energy was devoted to simply existing and not giving up. It really underscored how precious my time and energy is and how I need to devote it to things that are worthwhile. No, not just worthwhile, but things which I cannot live life without. The things are dearest and most deeply important to me.

This has given me a lot to think about as I ponder how I’ll change my management of time and energy in 2016. I will try and devote myself to not just ideas I like, but the ideas which I think are the best. The most important. I simply don’t have time to pursue anything less. This is helping to bring my artistic goals into much sharper focus. The dross will be burned away; the leftover gold burnished until it gleams.

I’m also making an effort to set aside more time for self-care activities, like short walks with Calantha or yoga when my body allows, meditation and reading for pleasure. Few things enrich my life (both my actual and imaginary worlds) as much as reading does and I need to make sure I don’t let that slip away from me by being “too busy” for it.

But of course the most important things are the relationships I have with friends and loved ones. Those will always be tended to, nurtured and cultivated as best as I can manage! I am blessed to have many, wonderful friends in my life, online and off, who get me, support me and my art and are incredibly gracious about my health problem. That’s something I should never forget to be grateful for or take for granted.

When I first met model and friend Travis Weinand, I was struck by how truly ethereal he looks. Not simply in pictures or when in costume, he always looks like he stepped out of a comic book, collection of mythology or possibly Middle Earth. With a quick stop-off for a dose of Viking and tattoos. Anyway, I immediately wanted him to have wings. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew he’d get them before we were done working together.

So at our next shoot, I asked him to sit in front of a dark backdrop and pose angelically. He made looking strong, gentle, loving and bad-ass all at the same time look effortless. Editing did take a while since I painted the wings myself and had to figure out exactly how I wanted these “wings made out of light” to look, but it was very worth the effort!

This character lives in DreamWorld, as you would probably guess, a centurion of sorts to DreamWorld’s Queen (whom you have not met yet, but hopefully you will soon). He leads the Queen’s army, the Glorious Guard, but he’s more than just a devoted servant. Part bodyguard, part lieutenant, part enforcer, part adviser, he is a dazzling embodiment of good.

The title of this image comes from one of my favorite poems of George Gordon Lord Byron, All For Love. In it, Byron discusses love being the greatest glory one can receive, far greater than wreaths, trophies or other symbols of glory:

O Fame! if I e’er took delight in thy praises, ‘Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discoverShe thought that I was not unworthy to love her.There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;When it sparkled o’er aught that was bright in my story,I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

That last line kept repeating and repeating through my head as I edited… thinking about the love he has for his Queen, those he protects and his glorious vestige, so I finally gave in and just used it as the title.

First, let me quickly update those of you who are regular readers. You may remember my Preparing For Battle post where I talked about… well, preparing for the big battle I was about to face. I was sick with stress and worry about it; it was honestly one of THE hardest things I have ever had to do.

But guess what? I WON!!! I’m afraid I still can’t give many details about the nature of the fight, but this is a huge, wonderful victory for me and will help make my life a little bit easier. So thank you VERY much to each and every one of you who said a prayer for me, lit a candle, sent Reiki or good thoughts… they all melded together and produced one hell of a win for me!

Now, with that’s said, let me tell you about my calendars!

Sarah Allegra 2016 Calendar

These guys are always a favorite; they’re probably my single best-selling item. And with good reason! Red Bubble packs a ton of quality into these babies with thick paper, almost like a heavy cardstock or watercolor paper. The pages have a subtle sheen without being shiny. The daily squares are big enough to make notes in. I still have calendars (both my own and from other artists) from years ago which hold up beautifully, even after years of flipping through them to see the lovely pictures!

Sarah Allegra 2016 Calendar

This also brings something else up: getting this calendar is like buying 12 small prints of my work! Each year’s images are different, making each year a unique and collectible item. And if you want to keep the calendar after the year is over, like I do, to enjoy the images whenever you want to pull it out? That’s fine! Red Bubble does a great job at printing the images and making them look the way I want them too; this is a solid buy! You’ll get images which span across my series, from my DreamWorld, Enchanted Sleep, Eternal Storms to self portraits, which feature Katie Johnson, Dedeker Winston, Travis Weinand, Noemi Regalado as well as the beloved author of The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle!

Also, while I was uploading a diptych of Travis for one month of the calendar, I noticed that it made a really awesome pattern for Red Bubble’s leggings. So get your Travis-printed leggings now! 😀

Travis Leggings

All of us independent artists and craftmakers REALLY appreciate your purchases, whether it’s for Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, regular holiday shopping, something for yourself, or any other reason you might have! Please keep shopping small in mind during this holiday season!

I promised you photos from my opening reception at the Creative Arts Group opening reception and here they are!

Of course I got all caught up experiencing the show to remember to take photos once it really got going, so mostly I have photos of the exhibit itself and a few from Geoff.

We had a pretty good turn-out! And luckily for my anxiety, I knew most of the people who came fairly well which made it much easier on me.

People seemed to really enjoy getting to see the props and costumes up close and realize they really weren’t Photoshopped. Not, of course, that there’s anything wrong with using Photoshop, I certainly do, frequently and heavily to make the impossible possible, but when I’ve put month and months of work into something, it’s an important distinction.

Me with the dress and flower footprints from Spring’s Awakening – and my awesome, retro-deer-print dress

Antlers from Where Black Stars Rise

Chest piece from Where Black Stars Rise

Our old neighbors, Donna and John, showed up, which was really lovely. It’s been hard on everyone to have suddenly gone from seeing each other every day to every few weeks, so it was great to be able to have them hang out for a little while and gossip about really important topics like Game of Thrones.

John, me and Donna

I was completely exhausted afterward and crashed very hard the next day… and a couple after that too. But it was good to have had the reception and I’m glad it happened, even if I paid for it later.

Maynard crawled up on me after I got home and laid on my chest, giving me sweet little kitty kisses. I took a photo because he was being so adorable and also to document the fact that I DO still know how to apply makeup, I just don’t bother expending energy on it regularly 😉 I have better things to do with the precious little I have.

It’s been a little while since I posted a new image, and part of that is because I’ve been hard at work getting ready for the show, then recovering, then I was helping Geoff with a really fantastic short film he made. Are you a sci fi fan? Like stories about dystopian futures? Give it a view! It’s a really cool, original concept which I’m proud to have my name attached to.

Now… on to my new image!

My good friend Danica is a horse trainer and I discovered she had a cream-colored gypsy vanner stallion named Booger staying with her for a few weeks. Booger was only going to be with her for a short time, so I quickly rallied Katie and got a shoot scheduled. Booger perfectly fit a series of images I’ve been wanting to shoot for years, but they required not only a horse, but an extremely specific-looking horse. Luckily, Booger fit the bill!

Those images will be coming later. For the mean time, I wanted to make as much use of him as possible, so we shot quite a few concepts. This one was Katie’s idea, sort of a companion piece to this self portrait I shot, also on a horse (Freddie, who is extremely laid-back) belonging to Danica:

Booger did such a good job! He’s only about two, a baby in horse years, and he had never modeled before. It required a lot of fast thinking, re-adjusting and everyone being on their toes, but we got some really wonderful shots! This is just the first of several which you’ll see; the others will be released as I get to them.

Thanks to Katie and Danica (who really did an incredible job of wrangling an untrained young stallion into doing the weird things we were asking of him), Booger’s owner for letting us photograph him, and especially to Booger for being such a great first-time model! Many smooches and apples to you, my friend 🙂

I’m sure you’ve noticed how often I incorporate animals, both pets and wild animals, into my photography. I do it because I love animals and because their presence in my work gives an extra sense of depth and wonder to my images.

A surprising and unexpected offshoot of that has been that people started asking me to photograph their pets. They want to immortalize their furbabies with the same sense of beauty and grandeur I infuse into my fine art photography. They wanted me to capture their animals like I capture my pets. It wasn’t something I thought of on my own, but my audience asked for it… and I have really enjoyed it, so I want to extend this idea to everyone!

Having pet parents entrust me with capturing their animal’s own natural beauty is an opportunity I take seriously and treasure. As someone with two cats and a dog of her own, who are all like my children, I know how deep the animal-human bond can be.

I’m happy to announce that I am holding a Spring Special on my pet portrait services! This special will give you a discount on my usual rate starting at $2500, now starting at only $2000! This investment gives you completely unique, original art of your furbaby and two museum-quality prints which will last a lifetime and more.

Would you like a portrait of your darling? Or do you want to see your baby featured in my DreamWorld series or another collection? I’m more than happy to discuss details and concepts (and I offer reduced pricing for animals included in a series)!

Let me tell you a little bit about my prints. They are made at an extremely high-quality printer in downtown Los Angeles. My printer is not at all easy to get to; there is always traffic and I manage to get lost and the entire experience of getting there is terrible, but I wouldn’t change printers for the world. Even if I moved out of state, I’d keep using them and have them ship me my prints. The incredible quality of the prints they deliver is just that high.

Each and every image is carefully calibrated to reveal even the tiniest details. They somehow manage to keep the highlights high and the lowlights low without a single pixel’s worth of detail loss. The colors are an exact match for how I intend the images to look. These are NOT easy things! I have been through many printers before I found POV Evolving. And a special shout-out and thank you to Lauren, who always handles my orders! She is a delightful person and makes sure each and every image created is perfect.

In addition to all that, they only use archival inks and paper, making prints that are museum-quality and which will last for a lifetime! The paper they use is this thick, luscious paper, almost like watercolor paper; nothing cheap or flimsy. Every single time I have an image printed, I’m impressed with how amazing it looks, even though I’ve been seeing how great they look for several years!

Each and every print will come signed and numbered along the white border. If you’d like a short, special message included, I’m happy to add that for you, free of charge!

One more word about my prints; the quality of them was high enough that Peter S. Beagle himself took them along legs of his The Last Unicorn screening tour.

Five of my prints along the left side of this photo (photo not taken by me)

This was extra special because not only was Peter S. Beagle, one of the biggest sources of inspiration to me and one of my two favorite authors (the other being Robin McKinley) had this adorable moment with Game Of Thrones author George RR Martin right in front of my prints:

Peter S. Beagle and George RR Martin with plushies, in front of my prints!

I’d like to say quickly that the above photo went a bit viral and I have been credited as the photographer, but I did not take this photo. I wasn’t even in the same state as they were at the time! I tweeted about the photo since it’s adorable and also in front of my prints, and then it really took off, but I did not snap the image, and though I have tried to correct news sources, they continue listing me as the photographer. So, I’m sorry to whoever did take this photo; I have tried to set the record straight!

If there is a certain image you’d like a print of, or you see an image you like but want it in a different size, just let me know! Some of my images are under contract and I am unable to sell prints of them for that reason, but the majority of the time, I will be able to accommodate you very easily!